Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The key aspect that has moved progress along at different times in respect of the redress scheme has been the imminence of elections. The initial expert panel was announced in December 2015, a couple of months before the February 2016 general election. What we saw after that was dilly-dallying. The chairman of the expert panel was not appointed until March or April. The panel itself was not appointed until summer 2016, which is after the date the expert panel said initially it would have reported. Once the Government received the report, it sat on Ministers' desks for months before it was published. Last October, when it looked as though there might be a general election, a scheme was committed to in advance of the budget. A couple of weeks before the local elections we received further confirmation that there would be a scheme but instead of the terms and conditions being published, we were told that officials from the Department would travel to meet Donegal County Council staff to discuss the detail of the scheme. Today, we still do not know the detail of the scheme. We are being asked now to accept that houses will be fixed in the autumn. I sincerely hope they will be but the foot-dragging on this has to stop.

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